


Get a Move On

by Missy



Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Canon Typical Suicide Mentions, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Growing Up, Helping, Or trying to, People Change People, Yuletide Madness, Yuletide Treat, playing with each other's hair, turning over a new leaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 02:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16610375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Heather tries to change.They all do.





	Get a Move On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenWithABeeThrone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/gifts).



Heather chooses to change her life.

It’s the opposite of what Heather Duke did when she seized the scrunchie and tried to bully her so-called best friend into submission, to near suicide. Heather consciously changes her behavior, lets the kindness she’s been suppressing out, started talking to people who looked as lonely and confused as she did in the hallway. Goes to sleepovers with people who aren’t cool, don't have the right outfits or make-up.

She has no idea if she’s helping – they look as confused as she feels, as if they’re all speaking different languages without a translator to help - but she’s trying.

*** 

Veronica thinks she’s making a difference.

The two of them sit with Martha at every lunch, and sometimes they come to Heather’s cheerleading practices. The three of them go out after; hang out at the mall, the arcade, or cruise around town in Heather’s car. 

Veronica says she can see the change in the way Heather holds herself. The way she acts when they’re alone. 

And definitely the way she acts when she thinks no one is watching.

 

*** 

There’s no magic cure the hell they’ve lived through, but it’s easier when they’re together. They become friends because of the trauma, but they stay friends because they like one another.

On Veronica’s birthday they meet outside school and Heather says, “let me buy you a pizza. That’s the only way I can thank you.”

Veronica’s smirk was lopsided. “I save you from suicide and you give me pimples. Good trade.” And the floodgates open. They start laughing, crying, and the edges come off.

But they eat pizza after cheerleading practice together, sitting on the bleachers. She doesn’t know when she starts playing with Veronica’s hair or leaning against her side while they talk.

The first time they kiss it’s at the school dance, and Martha’s got a boyfriend in the science club, dancing with him in circles while Heather and Veronica dance under the bleachers.

Some things are private, but won’t stay that way. And Heather’s fine with that.

*** 

Heather doesn’t think first when she sees a freshman make fun of the smaller, weaker kid – the one with braces and the zits, who never said anything but never did anything against anyone during all of those pep rallies and school assembles she’d been to during her senior year. 

She wedges herself between the mini-skirted girl – Heather Duke at fourteen, in heels too tall and a sneer too mean to be sincere – and the vulnerable one. She manages not to shake, not to back down, against even this weaker adversary. 

“Never do that again,” she says.

The mini-Heather almost pees herself. “I didn’t mean…”

“I know but don’t do it. There are people who’re weaker than you and don’t need your shit.”

The kid runs away. Heather wonders if that trick would have worked with Duke had she tried it years ago. But she realizes abruptly that it’s a question that doesn’t matter anymore. To the smaller child she offers a hand. “Hey,” she says. “If you ever need any help, you can find me in study hall during first period.”

The smile the kid gives her, the nod of understanding, is more important than any scrunchie could be.


End file.
